


Anxo

by kyrilu



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Evil Q - Freeform, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:29:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I really don’t understand you,” Q says from the window, after Silva sees the sunlight on his hair and calls him an angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anxo

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea WTF this is, but here, enjoy manipulative!Q. What I wrote for Bond/Q as is essentially the same feeeeelings that motivated me to ship Chase/House a couple years back. Yep. That says a lot about me, tbh.

 “I really don’t understand you,” Q says from the window, after Silva sees the sunlight on his hair and calls him an angel.

(--But he _does_.)

“Mm,” Silva says, and he turns his attention back to his laptop. He’s still in bed, half-clothed, and his hair’s an utter disarray.

Q turns to peer at the black screen, lines of code typed carefully and concisely rows and rows across. “Almost finished yet?”

“Take a look yourself.”

He gets up from the window seat, slowly making his way back to bed. He sees the words _THINK ON YOUR SINS._ “You’re obsessed. Really now. It’s rather unbecoming of you, Raoul.”

“Haven’t I always been?” Silva says, jovial, and shows him his teeth.

 

*

 

He’s known Silva for two years. Well, technically longer, to be honest. Q had been in a spot of hacking warfare with a nameless correspondence for a year before that; nothing particularly harmful, just a bit of quibbling over who can modify this program the best or hack into that latest software the fastest.

(His name was not Q, then. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s call him so.)

They’d met eventually, and Silva, always the one with no disregard for personal space, had let his hand fall down on the curls of Q’s head. He’d said, “I thought you would be taller.”

“Piss off,” Q had replied, annoyed. He was only twenty, barely out of his teenage years -- hopelessly proud of his tech accomplishments, probably on his way to become a black market cyber hacker if MI6 hadn’t found him. He had so much _pride_ but Silva is the one who ekes it out of him.

No: that’s wrong. He’s still proud, but he learns to wield it all like a fine weapon. He gets James Bond to smile at him, years later, in a museum -- which is perfect, easy, and Q thinks despite himself _I can use this_.

 

*

 

“You purchased glasses,” Silva tells him, pressing a finger to his nose. “Hmm. You look different. Are you trying to appear more clever now? Well, you don’t need that.”

Q raises his eyebrows, and flashes a sliver of a smile back at him. “All the better to see you with, Raoul,” and Silva chuckles like it’s the greatest joke in the world. Silva’s hand snakes up to pull him close, and this -- one year after they met -- is the first time they kiss.

By then Q thinks he knows the mechanism of Silva’s mind because when it comes down to everything, it’s all code. He knows that cyphers are easy to translate once you put them in a computer and find the key, and that following the logical order of things _this_ is all a brand of cryptography.

Which is why he runs a finger across the pads of Silva’s thumbs and compares them to a circuit board.

“Clever boy, clever boy,” Silva croons into his ear, low and almost a threat, but Q figures that he’s got the upper hand.

He knows, too, that Silva has quite the unsavoury reputation among cybercriminals, but that doesn’t stop him from smiling when the morning news reports a so-called error shifting the stock market. It’s brilliant, intricate work built from Silva’s fingers (101010101010101) and he can identify the grooves on Silva’s laptop spacebar, from the incessant pressing.

This is a victory. A hand tangled into his hair and pulling sensations all across; the shift of suits and buttons and heat; and he leans back back back against the wall, his eyes reflecting the dim glow of computer screens.

They play games.

Whether it’s whoever can find a way to divert Apple or Google or whoever into yet another patent war with a well-placed email or whoever can hold their breath long enough as fingers brush slow lines of trousers or whoever can go the longest this way without making any of it sound like desperation.

Silva’s teeth scrape against the back of his neck, but it doesn’t cut, doesn’t shed blood. Which is good, because that would be terribly unsanitary, and Q likes to play these games neatly.

He doesn’t cheat when he cups Silva’s jaw, feeling the prosthetic machine rumbling underneath, because he knows that this gentleness is Silva’s pain, a reminder. So Silva slips and calls him _meu amor_ before he comes.

 

*

 

Q has a circuit board in his hands, and Silva pitches it onto the ground with disgust on his face. He says, “Don’t bother, Q, my boy, my boy. Don’t ruin your fingers -- no, that wouldn’t be good.” Silva clucks his tongue. He’s taken to calling him _Q_ ridiculously often, seeing as he’d made the position two days ago, a hasty promotion housed in the temporary MI6 headquarters.

(He doesn’t miss his real name, though, because _Quartermaster_ carries so much weight to him.)

“I’m not a child,” Q says crossly, kneeling to the floor and picking up the pieces, but Silva steps on his fingers and he winces. “Christ. Raoul. You’re defeating the whole point of your--”

Silva lifts his foot away, delicately positioning it elsewhere. “Mm, no, you’re wasting your time. Such things can be built for you. You realise how easier it is, hmm? Now that you’re the grand Q serving Queen and Country and that old bitch -- do consider your future and stop dallying with MI6. My empire for you.”

 _That old bitch_ , Q thinks, and he wants to trace the curve of Silva’s face again, the prosthetic and the false skin and the _burning_ expression in Silva’s eyes when does so.

“And what do you want in return?” Q says, wry. He safely migrates the circuit board onto a nearby desk, but Silva follows him anyway, talking softly into the shell of his ear.

“Your service, of course. Also, please get rid of that rubbish you’re wearing; it’s irritating that you insist on sub-par clothing.”

Q rolls his eyes. They’ve had this quarrel before, many times.

“Also,” Silva begins, but Q’s already pressing against Silva, leaning backwards, and Silva lets out a contented rumble.

“You’re boring,” Q says, quietly, and reaches behind to undo Silva’s tie, a splash of cream white fabric around his forefingers.

 

*

 

Q drops breadcrumbs for Silva, and he’s surprised that Silva follows them, but well, somebody’s slipping again, like always. From CCTV, he watches the mansion burn, his hands folded in his lap.

So. A new game, perhaps.

When he sees James Bond the next time, he’s already interpreted the data. As quartermaster, he’s allowed access into 007’s files, and the name _Vesper Lynd_ is promising.

He leaves a file about the remains of Raoul Silva’s personal empire peeking out behind the current mission papers on his desk. Q hands Bond a file, and they’re sniping at each other although Bond will never admit to _sniping_ ; by the time Q looks down, the folder’s gone.

Raoul Silva wasn’t the only one who obsessed over M. Or maybe in this situation one would say _cared for_ , but it’s a bit hard to tell the difference.

 

*

 

Years of Silva’s hard work crumbles when Bond blows up the major safe-houses and kills the last of his contacts.

(Barring one. Q is good at covering his tracks.)

Silva’s island, on the coast of Galicia -- his grandmother's -- is the last one to go. There’s a house here, with one gun and one laptop and one bed, because Silva wanted them to share everything here, and find a semblance of peace, domesticity, although he’d never said it aloud. Which was impossible, seeing as they were always connected to the outside world through the laptop.

Silva was very sentimental, and Q remembers their hands gripped together during sex, fingers curled. (But maybe he was the one who held Silva’s hands first. Or Silva initiated it, more likely. He can’t quite recall the specific details.)

Silva had sang in front of the window once: _San Antonio bendito/dádame un home/anque me mate/anque me esfole._

 

*

 

_Anque me mate/Anque me esfole._

The rhythm of it is caught in his head, and it’s ridiculous because he’s only got a working knowledge of the language, but Silva had _slipped_ in front of him, so many times, so sentimental, and Q works at his laptop for hours tonight, fingers never stopping, and they’re numb.

He composes himself by the morning, and thinks: _I hope I’m fucking exotic_ _enough for James bloody Bond._

He arranges a briefing with Bond in a restaurant, over alcohol that neither of them should’ve been drinking on the job, but that means that they’re grinning at each other like children caught with the cookie jar when Eve says over the comm: _Really, you two?_

“Just something to tide us over, Moneypenny,” Q says.

“Right,” Bond adds helpfully, and Q expresses an interest in his martini -- so what’d you have the bartender mix in it, anyway? -- and their conversation rolls on.

He makes sure that their hands brush too long when he hands over the latest gadgets -- some explosive knick-knacks, included just to please Bond. He makes sure that his mouth is angled in a smile just _so_ in that his eyes are warm when he says, “Be seeing you next time, then, 007.”

 

*

 

Q hums strains of a Galician poem under his breath when he’s preparing for another briefing with Bond, picking out what he thinks might be the right tie or suit or trousers. Or whatever might seem endearing enough, at least, because he’s pretty sure that Bond’s starting to get fond of him.

He considers wearing contacts instead of glasses -- statistically, how many of Bond’s one-night stands have been bespectacled--? But it’s really a nuisance, so he decides in the end not to bother.

“Good evening, 007,” he says, and they’re at an art museum for the second time, because Q rather likes them, and maybe it’ll set a mood, harking back to the first time. He settles onto a lunch table -- they’re outside, adjacent to an Egyptian exhibit.

Bond’s eyes light slightly when he sees him, and Q notices the quirk of his lips. “Evening, Quartermaster. What is it today?”

And if their ankles are touching, almost close enough to tangle together, neither of them say a word.

 

*

 

He takes his opportunity when Bond gets drugged, his voice sluggish, words slurred. Over the comm he says, “007, please concentrate. Tell me your location so we can retrieve you.”

“I don’t know,” comes the answer, and it’s fading away. “Christ, I--”

“Shut up,” Q snaps. “There’s no CCTV in the area, so you’ve got to _think_ , you bloody blockhead _._ What was the last street you passed? What was a landmark -- I don’t know, some sort of building or skyscraper or whatever the hell they’ve got in that godforsaken city--?”

No response; there’s the heavy sound of breathing that seems like it hasn’t sunk into unconsciousness yet, like Bond’s struggling.

“Calm down, Q,” Eve tells him. “We’ve got to--”

“No, I -- sorry, but,” he says, “we have no idea what they gave him; it may be fatal.” He types away, trying to figure out possible poisons, possible locations. “007? Bond? Are you still there?”

He tries again, “ _James._ James -- _James._ ”

“Yeah. Q,” Bond says, his voice a whisper, and Q knows he’s got him, then.

 

*

 

Like he expected, Bond gets out of this danger easily. And when he returns, he shoves Q into his bed with an unexpected ferocity, and Q hisses an inaudible, _lovely brute_ , once he feels Bond’s waist dig against his.

 _Lovely, lovely brute_ because there is a beauty to this one, and Q thinks of the way Silva used to say his (real) name.

 

*

 

On the roof of MI6, Q’s white dress shirt flutters in the wind. He stands on the edge, perching carefully on the pavement ledge.

He trembles a little -- fucking _phobia_ \-- but he can brave through the worst of it. Afterwards he can curl into the sofa back at his flat, distract himself with his laptop. Maybe ring Bond to drop by, so that there’s a steady hand on his shoulder, a hand that might mean something.

Silva liked taking him round the world and always made sure he was knocked out for plane rides. It was perhaps one of the kindest things somebody had ever done for him, really.

(An orphan with a jagged smile who can do anything.)

He idly raises his arms, back, forth. _Not afraid, not afraid._

Maybe, perhaps from a distance, he looks a little bit like an angel.

 

*

 

_Por el peno de día,_

_de noite peno,_

_persando nos seus ollos_

_color de ceo._

 

*

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _San Antonio bendito/dádame un home/anque me mate/anque me esfole._ \-- From "A Maiden’s Prayer", a Galician poem. It translates to: Blessed Saint Anthony/Grant me a man/Even if he kills me/Even if he skins me.
> 
>  _Por el peno de día/de noite peno/persando nos seus ollos/color de ceo._ \-- For him I ache by day/by night ache I/brooding over his eyes/the colour of the sky.
> 
>  
> 
> You can tell I re-read _Captive Prince_ recently. Q's use of 'lovely brute' brings to mind Laurent's 'dear brute' to Damen. :P


End file.
